Kubla Khan

Study Guide by Course Hero

"Kubla Khan" is narrated in both past and future tense.

What's Inside
ABOUT THE TITLE
"Kubla Khan" references Kublai Khan (1215–94), the grandson
j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1 of famed Mongolian Empire ruler Genghis Khan (c. 1162–1227)
and founder of the Yuan dynasty in China. The poem's full title,
d In Context ..................................................................................................... 1 "Kubla Khan: Or, a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment," refers to the
fact that Coleridge wrote the poem after waking from a dream
a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 2
he had under the influence of opiates.
k Plot Summary ............................................................................................. 4

c Plot Analysis ............................................................................................... 4

g Quotes ........................................................................................................... 7
d In Context
l Symbols ...................................................................................................... 10

m Themes ....................................................................................................... 10
Kubla Khan and Xanadu
b Narrative Voice ......................................................................................... 11 Kubla Khan (1215–94; spelled Kublai in modern usage) was a
powerful Mongolian king who became emperor of China in
e Suggested Reading ................................................................................ 11 1260. He was part of the Yuan dynasty, which was established
in 1206 in what is now Mongolia in north-central Asia. After
conquering northern and southern China, the Yuan dynasty
controlled both Mongolia and China from 1271 to 1368.
j Book Basics
Kubla Khan was the grandson of Genghis Khan (c. 1162–1227),
a famed Mongolian warrior and ruler who conquered much of
AUTHOR
Asia during the 13th century. He was the fifth emperor of the
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Yuan dynasty and arguably his grandfather's greatest
YEAR PUBLISHED successor—he was the first to rule all of China. The capital of
1816 Kubla Khan's kingdom was called Dadu, located in present-day
Beijing, but he also established a northern capital in Shangdu,
GENRE or Xanadu, in Mongolia. The Venetian explorer Marco Polo (c.
Fiction 1254–1324) visited Kubla Khan's palace there in 1265.

PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR Because of Polo's descriptions of the palace's opulence, the
"Kubla Khan" is narrated in the first person from the name Xanadu became synonymous with abundant displays of
perspective of a speaker who is fascinated by (or possibly is) wealth. Polo described a palace built of fine marble, covered in
Kubla Khan. gilt, and "painted with figures of men and beasts and birds ... all
executed with such exquisite art that you regard them with
TENSE
Kubla Khan Study Guide Author Biography 2

delight and astonishment." The English writer Samuel Purchas individualism, and self-expression as a way to communicate,
(c. 1577–1626) also wrote about Xanadu in a 17th-century travel and they worried less about rationality and objectivity. In his
encyclopedia Coleridge had read, inspiring him to write the 1817 reflections on poetry, Biographia Literaria, Coleridge
poem. Purchas describes Xanadu as a palace with "a stately wrote: "The best part of human language, properly so called, is
garden ... ten miles of fertile ground were [e]nclosed with a derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself. It is
wall." Coleridge makes a reference in the poem to Kubla Khan formed by a voluntary appropriation of fixed symbols to
hearing "ancestral voices prophesying war." This may allude to internal acts, to processes and results of imagination, the
the opposition Kubla Khan faced from his younger brother, greater part of which have no place in the consciousness of
Arigböge, who claimed the kingship while his brother was uneducated man."
fighting a battle. A civil war followed, and Kubla Khan
eventually defeated his brother with a military victory. Coleridge was highly influenced by Romantic thinking, with its
"reflections on the acts of the mind itself" and the "results of
imagination." This thinking informed the way he wrote poems

Mythology such as "Kubla Khan," which features reflection, memory, and

imaginative striving rather than a moral or overarching theme.

Although Xanadu was a real palace from which Kubla Khan

ruled, there are also mythical references throughout the poem
that lend it a dreamlike, imaginary quality. One such reference Poetic Form
is to "Alph, the sacred river," which many scholars agree refers
to the Alpheus River, located in Greece. A 2nd-century book "Kubla Khan" has three stanzas, with 11, 25, and 18 lines,

called Description of Greece, written in by the geographer respectively. It is written mostly in iambs—that is, rhythmic

Pausanias, describes the Alpheus River. In this depiction the patterns of unstressed and stressed syllables, each pattern

river meanders through caves and forests and forms fountains known as a foot. Some lines fall in iambic tetrameter, with four

of water—much like the river and fountain described in the feet to a line (in Xa na du did Ku bla Khan). Others are

poem. primarily in iambic pentameter, with five feet to a line (and

there were gar dens bright with sin uous rills).
The poem also has supernatural qualities and references,
lending it a mythological cadence and tone. It describes a
The rhyme scheme also varies. Sometimes the lines fall in
"woman wailing for her demon-lover," which hints at divine
rhyming couplets, at other times alternating lines rhyme, and in
punishment. Kubla Khan's ancestors also offer him a prophecy
other places the first, third, and fourth lines and the second
of war, which brings in an element of mythological fate and the
and fifth lines rhyme. The effect heightens the incantatory, or
influence of ancestors on present-day life. Another line
chant-like, tone of the poem.
describes "the shadow of the dome of pleasure" floating
"midway on the waves," which suggests there is something
ominous and divine about the trials Kubla Khan will face.
a Author Biography
Romanticism
Early Life and Education
Romanticism as an intellectual and artistic movement came
into fashion during the late 19th century. It influenced many Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in the Devon village of
disciplines, including literature, art, music, and architecture. Ottery in England on October 21, 1722, the 10th and youngest
Romanticists in art and literature emphasized feelings and child of Ann Bowden Coleridge and John Coleridge. His father
emotions in reaction to the Enlightenment period, which relied was a vicar, or member of the clergy, and a schoolmaster.
solely on facts and rationality to reach truth. Romanticists Coleridge's childhood was spent surrounded by books, and he
chose instead to investigate beauty, landscapes, and intuition read widely, especially romances and fairy tales. John
to find truth. They also placed heavy emphasis on dreams, Coleridge died suddenly in 1781. A year later Coleridge went to

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Kubla Khan Study Guide Author Biography 3

London to attend school at Christ's Hospital. In 1791 he

attended Jesus College at Cambridge. He continued to read Writing Career
voraciously, with an interest in imaginative works and visionary
philosophy. Because of financial problems, Coleridge left Working creatively together, Coleridge and William

Cambridge in his third year and enlisted in the military under an Wordsworth ushered in the Romantic period of literature in

assumed name. He served less than half a year. Because he England with their joint publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798.

was miserable in the military, his family bought out his Lyrical Ballads was a sharp change from the contemporary

commission, and he returned to Cambridge. conventions of English poetry. It emphasized natural speech
over poetic speech, simple themes over stylized symbolism,
At Cambridge, in June 1794, Coleridge became friends with the beauty of nature over urbanization, and emotion and
poet Robert Southey, and the two concocted a plan to form an imagination over abstract thought.
idealistic society, known as a pantisocracy, in Susquehanna
Valley, Pennsylvania. In their utopian society everyone would Coleridge's poetry featured a conversational tone, and his

live simple, virtuous lives, working together with the common musical rhythm developed an entirely new, less formal style. He

ideals of justice and liberty. Their plan was in part a reaction to became best known as a poet of imagination, one who

the political debates of the time. The events of the French explored the interplay between the natural world and the mind.

Revolution (1789–99) had affected all of Europe, and "Kubla Khan" (1816), one of Coleridge's most famous poems,

intellectuals were questioning the best forms of government was composed during the aftermath of an opium dream. It

and seeking to do away with monarchical rule. In August, became famous for its vivid, fantastic imagery. Critics

Coleridge and Southey left Cambridge and went to Bristol, considered it a frivolous and unsubstantial work, while others

where Coleridge worked as a public lecturer. To raise money believed it to be a statement about the nature of human genius.

for their move to America, Coleridge and Southey wrote a

To make ends meet for himself and his family, Coleridge began
three-act play titled The Fall of Robespierre, which was based
his career as a literary critic. His lectures of 1811 and 1812 on
on real events of the French Revolution. Maximilien
British playwright William Shakespeare revived interest in the
Robespierre, a major controversial political figure—loved,
Elizabethan playwrights. He published his Biographia Literaria
feared, and hated by many—who sided with the common
in 1817, his response to Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads
people over the nobles and had a hand in the 1793 execution
and his musings on English poetry.
of the king of France, King Louis XVI, had been publicly
beheaded in July 1794.

The play was bought by a Bristol bookseller, Joseph Cottle, Death and Legacy
who published it in September of the same year. Coleridge and
Southey received nine pence for each copy sold. Continuing In an attempt to treat his opium addiction, Coleridge moved to
with their plan to move to America and set up an ideal society, Highgate to live with Dr. James Gillman, a physician, in 1816. He
Southey married Edith Fricker and urged Coleridge to marry remained there for the rest of his life, writing and preparing
her sister, Sara Fricker, whom Coleridge married in October lectures. Coleridge died on July 25, 1834.
1795. Southey's wife convinced him to move to Wales instead
The imaginative imagery in Coleridge's poems inspired the next
of America, and Southey abandoned the idea of the
generation of English Romantics and Victorians. This
pantisocracy altogether, leaving Coleridge feeling betrayed
generation, which lived during Queen Victoria's reign
and married to a woman he did not truly love. During this time
(1837–1901), fused Romantic and realist styles of writing. Poets
Coleridge and English poet William Wordsworth began to work
Percy Bysshe Shelley; John Keats; Robert Browning; Alfred,
together, and the two men formed a deep and devoted
Lord Tennyson; and Algernon Charles Swinburne were all
creative friendship. Coleridge spent the better part of the next
poetically influenced by Coleridge. Coleridge's work helped
decade traveling with Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy. In
shape the Romantic movement, which stressed imagination
1799 Coleridge met Sara Hutchinson and fell in love with her.
and creativity. His essays in Biographia Literaria offer
Coleridge eventually separated from his wife, and Southey
invaluable insight into the formation of the theories behind the
took care of her and her children by Coleridge for the rest of
movement.
their lives.

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Kubla Khan Study Guide Plot Summary 4

k Plot Summary c Plot Analysis

Stanza 1 Structure and Meter

The speaker describes a place called Xanadu, where a ruler "Kubla Khan" is composed of three stanzas. There are different
named Kubla Khan rules from "a stately pleasure-dome" built rhyme schemes and rhythms in each stanza, although
under his command. Xanadu is near a sacred river that runs Coleridge uses rhyming iambic meter throughout, in which the
through caverns out to the sea. The land the palace is on is second syllable in each foot, or unit of meter, is stressed.
"fertile" and full of gardens. It's surrounded by walls, towers, Coleridge himself stated that the poem was incomplete, yet
and ancient forests. the meter and structure of the poem still have a profound and
memorable effect. Coleridge uses both tetrameter (four sets of
one unstressed syllable and one stressed) and pentameter
Stanza 2 (five feet iambs). He changes between them at times, forcing
the reader to slow down and take in the effect rather than read
There is a moss-covered "deep romantic chasm" in the hillside. the lines in a state of rhythmic hypnosis. End rhymes do occur
The speaker describes the forest around it as "savage" and as throughout the poem, but Coleridge uses rhyme schemes in a
"holy and enchanted." It is a place haunted by a "woman wailing nonorderly way that causes the lines to build upon one
for her demon-lover." From the chasm a fountain bursts and another. This compels the reader to wonder what might
continues to gush in intermittent bursts. The speaker feels happen next. Sometimes he rhymes successive lines, and
these bursts as though they are almost alive, breathing and sometimes he rhymes alternate lines or even skips two lines
forceful. From there, the river originates, and it runs for five before introducing the rhyme. Coleridge's rhyme scheme lends
miles through the forest and the land, reaching all the way to itself better to being read aloud, allowing the reader to
the caves and the sea. In the sounds coming from the river, experience the full effect of how the poem circles back to
Kubla Khan hears "ancestral voices" prophesying that war is memories and thoughts. He also uses internal rhymes
coming. And the pleasure dome casts a shadow on the waves, throughout the poem to create an alternative rhythm, such as
where the sound of both the fountain and the caves can be in the repeated phrase five miles and in the imperfect rhymes
heard. This seems like a strange miracle, and the speaker of the words romantic and slanted and the words midway and
paints an image of "a sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice." waves.

The first stanza, written in tetrameter and then pentameter,

has a measured and rhythmic structure, but the second stanza
Stanza 3 signals an abrupt shift with its opening exclamation, "But oh!"
Though each stanza builds on the one before it, in many ways
The speaker once had a vision in which he saw "a damsel with
each stands alone as an individual poem because it is so
a dulcimer," a woman from Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) who
different in structure and tone. Yet Coleridge also achieves an
played her stringed instrument and sang about a place called
overall rhythm throughout the poem that feels akin to a musical
Mount Abora. The speaker is filled with delight to recall her
chant, adding to the dreamlike effect. At the same time, the
singing and playing. He imagines that if he had the power to
poem is very much as Coleridge states in the alternate title—a
recall it accurately, he could "build that dome in air," with its
fragment. In this way the structure of the poem itself
caves of ice. He feels that anyone who heard the song would
resembles the fragmentary structure of a dream when
see the dome and cry "Beware!" at the sight of a man with
recalled. Dreams are remembered in striking images and
"flashing eyes" and "floating hair." The speaker instructs those
emotional tones, and they often shift in shape, location, time,
listening to "weave a circle round him" three times and close
and narration.
their eyes "with holy dread," because this man has eaten
"honey-dew" and "drunk the milk of Paradise."

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Kubla Khan Study Guide Plot Analysis 5

achieves a peaceful sense of serenity through phrases such as

Repetition, Inversion, and "pleasure-dome," "fertile ground," "gardens bright," "blossomed
many an incense-bearing tree," and "sunny spots of greenery."
Alliteration These images conjure up a deeply sensory experience for the
reader and paint a vivid picture of Xanadu. Yet Coleridge also
Words and images repeat often in the poem—pleasure-dome, weaves in hints of something foreboding and even more
chasm, sacred river, caverns measureless to man, caves of ice. ancient than the subject of the poem itself. By referencing "the
The effect of this repetition mimics how images emerge in a sacred river" Alph and "forests ancient as the hills," he places
dream, which often seem symbolic and make a hazy the Xanadu in an ancient time period, and he instills a Romantic
impression on the dreamer. It seems as though by using this sense of the sublime with his imagery of "caverns
repetition, the speaker hopes to capture precise images and measureless" and "a sunless sea." These images are meant to
emotions. However, by the end of the poem, he recognizes that evoke a sense of awe and perhaps even a tinge of dread in the
it is in vain. The repetition in the poem also creates a musical reader, creating a tension between what appears peaceful on
effect, working toward a kind of harmony when read aloud in the surface and what lies beneath. In this light, the poem takes
conjunction with the rhythm created by the length of the on an almost supernatural tone through its imagery and
poem's lines. To further enhance the musicality in the poem, language.
Coleridge employs alliteration, or the repetition of initial
consonant sounds, such as in the phrases "measureless to In Stanza 2 Coleridge takes the reader, who may be
man," "woman wailing," "ceaseless turmoil seething," and "five anticipating more scenes of Kubla Khan's Xanadu, on a
miles of fertile ground." But as dream images often fade different journey. The speaker describes a mythical place,
quickly, the repetition and alliteration may have been whose supernal, otherworldly qualities are rendered in both the
Coleridge's subconscious strategy for committing the dream to poem's imagery and its tone. The bursting fountain in the
memory as quickly as possible. chasm is described as "holy and enchanted." While Kubla Khan
created his pleasure dome, something far more ancient and
Coleridge also uses inversion—reversing the usual word mythical has created this sacred river, chasm, and fountain,
order—to create a musical, chant-like effect, such as "In and it is from this place that Kubla Khan hears the prophecies
Xanadu did Kubla Khan," "Where blossomed many an incense- of his ancestors. Coleridge also creates a tense tone
bearing tree," and "In a vision once I saw." These poetic throughout the poem by contrasting ideas and images, such as
choices allow Coleridge to rhyme certain words for greater "holy" versus "haunted" and "sunny pleasure-dome" versus
effect, and they create an innate sense of rhythm. The sounds "caves of ice."
Coleridge creates invite the reader to read the poem aloud,
which best serves the poem's purpose. For example, in the Much like the recounting of a dream, the imagery in the poem
line"Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail," Coleridge appears to have little logical consistency in how it leaps from
uses hard consonants to mimic the impact of hail, but he also image to image. The poem's deliberate structure is written in a
uses open vowel sounds in the words vaulted, hail, and way that makes it seem stitched together by the speaker's free
rebounding to create the aural sensation of an echo someone association between images, ideas, and feelings. The tone of
might hear in such a place. Short, abrupt exclamations create a the first stanza is one of reverent description and admiration
jolting sound experience, in such phrases as "But oh!" "A for Kubla Khan and Xanadu. In the second stanza, however, the
savage place!" "That sunny dome! those caves of ice!" and reader is required to delve deeper into the realms of
"Beware!" These phrases grab the reader's attention and imagination, entering a world in which chasms can be haunted
cause the reader to pause rather than become lost in the lull of by demon-loving women and Kubla Khan can hear "ancestral
the rest of the poem's rhythms. voices prophesying war." In Stanza 3 the imagery and tone
change completely again, reflecting the imaginative strivings of
the speaker himself. His word choices, such as symphony and
Imagery and Tone song, honey-dew, milk, and Paradise, are meant to elicit images
so beautiful they appear almost dangerous. These sights have
Coleridge creates tension and wonder in the poem through his certainly changed the speaker enough to warn his readers
use of contrasting imagery and tone. In the first stanza, he "Beware! Beware!" The speaker leaves the reader with a

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Kubla Khan Study Guide Plot Analysis 6

ghostly image of himself reduced to "flashing eyes" and

"floating hair" to perhaps imply that the act of creating the
poem, like the act of reading the poem, is a disembodied event
that takes place in the mind, for both the poet and the reader.

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Kubla Khan Study Guide Quotes 7

smells like and gives it an almost mythic quality.

g Quotes
"But oh! that deep romantic chasm
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A
which slanted / Down the green
stately pleasure-dome decree: /
hill athwart a cedarn cover!"
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran /
Through caverns measureless to — Narrator

man / Down to a sunless sea."

The speaker's exclamation breaks up the rhythm of the poem,

— Narrator causing the reader to wonder what has stopped him so

suddenly, as though an idea or image has just occurred to him.
The image is one of a "deep romantic chasm" in the side of a
The speaker begins the poem by naming its setting, Xanadu, hill. Coleridge's use of the word romantic begins to lend the
and main subject, Kubla Khan. He paints a vivid picture of "a poem a dreamier quality. The imagery has moved away from
stately pleasure-dome" Kubla Khan decreed to be built, mere sensory information about Xanadu and further into the
introducing his power as a ruler. The speaker widens the view realm of the mythical. Something about this chasm strikes the
to show how Khan's pleasure dome is situated near a sacred speaker deeply enough to make him exclaim about it. This
river, Alph, which runs through caverns and into "a sunless serves to pique the reader's curiosity about what makes it so
sea." Even within these first lines, the speaker shifts from a special.
positive view (with "a stately pleasure-dome" and a "sacred
river") to something a bit more ominous: "a sunless sea." This
introduces a foreboding tone, which could be cause for
"A savage place! as holy and
concern for a powerful ruler such as Kubla Khan, luxuriating in
his palace. enchanted / As e'er beneath a
waning moon was haunted / By
"And there were gardens bright woman wailing for her demon-
with sinuous rills, / Where lover!"
blossomed many an incense-
— Narrator
bearing tree; / And here were
forests ancient as the hills." The speaker makes another sudden exclamation that breaks
up the rhythm of the poem. He builds upon the description of

— Narrator the chasm as "romantic" in the previous lines by adding it was

also "savage," "holy," and "enchanted." These descriptions lend
it an even more mythical quality. It is also "haunted" by a
The lines of the second half of the first stanza are longer than "woman wailing for her demon-lover." Both the tone and the
those of the first half, signaling a shift to the reader. The subject of the poem have now changed from the first stanza,
speaker zooms in so the reader can get a closer look at Kubla as the speaker moves from Kubla Khan and his palace to this
Khan's "stately pleasure-dome." He paints a vivid picture of its chasm in a nearby hill.
gardens, including sensory descriptions of "an incense-bearing
tree" and ancient forests. The speaker spends time setting up
this vivid world for the reader to fully flesh out what it looks and
"And from this chasm, with

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Kubla Khan Study Guide Quotes 8

Here the speaker continues with the notion of unchecked

ceaseless turmoil seething, / As if
nature as a contrast to the manicured greenery surrounding
this earth in fast thick pants were Kubla Khan's palace. The repetition of the word sacred to
describe the river recurs, emphasizing its unusual spiritual
breathing, / A mighty fountain
quality. "Caverns measureless to man" is also repeated from
momently was forced." the first stanza, as well as the depiction of the ocean as
"lifeless" (described as "sunless" in the first stanza). This
imagery has the effect of striking a sense of the sublime in
— Narrator
readers with the notion of nature as terrifying and awe-
inducing.
The words the speaker uses to describe the water bubbling
from this chasm are visceral and personified. It seethes and
breathes as water bursts forth. The reader is guided to wonder
"And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard
what the significance of this chasm is and why the speaker is
so focused on it. The tone of the description has shifted from from far / Ancestral voices
reverence to a feeling that it is sinister and alive, with its
"ceaseless turmoil seething."
prophesying war!"

— Narrator

"Amid whose swift half-intermitted

The speaker has been slowly building up the imagery and tone
burst / Huge fragments vaulted
of the poem to hint at something more fantastical, imaginary,
like rebounding hail." and mythical than the first stanza indicates. Here the poem
seems to come to a head with the declaration that "'mid the
tumult" of the fountain, he hears "ancestral voices prophesying
— Narrator
war." The word ancestral links to other words in the poem that
indicate a force much older than Kubla Khan is at work. Nature
One contrast created throughout the poem is the notion of is linked to something ancient and mysterious, and it can yield
nature as both peaceful and hostile. The nature surrounding answers.
Kubla Khan's pleasure dome seems to be inhabited with
something fantastical, ancient, and threatening. Here the
speaker describes the water spewing forth from the chasm
"The shadow of the dome of
"like rebounding hail," and in this way it is depicted as a force
unto itself that cannot be controlled. pleasure / Floated midway on the
waves; / Where was heard the
"Through wood and dale the mingled measure / From the
sacred river ran, / Then reached fountain and the caves."
the caverns measureless to man, /
— Narrator
And sank in tumult to a lifeless
ocean." These lines of the poem seem almost impressionistic,
mimicking the sensation of recalling only fragments of images
from a dream. Here the impressions include "the shadow of the
— Narrator
dome" floating "midway on the waves," which implies only a
partial and vague perception of the dome. From this strange

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Kubla Khan Study Guide Quotes 9

point one can hear "the mingled measure / From the fountain — Narrator
and the caves." These lines also highlight the fact that to read
this poem and inhabit the world Coleridge is describing, the
The speaker yearns to "revive within" him precisely how the
reader is forced to suspend disbelief.
damsel's song sounded in order to recreate it. With this ability
he would be able to build his own "dome in air," complete with
its contradictory sunny dome and caves of ice. These lines
"It was a miracle of rare device, / A speak to the impossibility of recalling dreams and memories in
such a way as to recreate them in reality or on the page.
sunny pleasure-dome with caves
of ice!"
"And all who heard should see
— Narrator
them there, / And all should cry,
The speaker's phrasing of the dome as "a miracle of rare Beware! Beware!"
device" is meant to hint at its fantastical qualities. The images
of a "sunny pleasure-dome" and "caves of ice" are at odds with — Narrator
one another. Again, the speaker has moved the description of
Xanadu from the practical and real to something more
If only the speaker could recall the song of the damsel, he
imaginative and unlikely to exist in reality. The imagery also
could build his own "sunny dome" with "caves of ice." Only then
sharpens the many contradictions providing tension
would he strike fear into onlookers over what he had rendered,
throughout the poem, emphasizing that this dreamworld is one
requiring all to take notice.
in which unlikely things can coexist.

"His flashing eyes, his floating

"In a vision once I saw: / It was an
hair!"
Abyssinian maid / And on her
dulcimer she played, / Singing of — Narrator

Mount Abora."
It's unclear whether the person being referred to here is Kubla
— Narrator Khan or the speaker himself—or, in the manner of dreams, both
of them at once. The image presented, however, is both
intimidating and fantastical. The image conjures up a series of
Here the image shifts abruptly to another vision the speaker questions. Whom is the speaker referring to? Why are the
has had—a girl playing a dulcimer, a stringed instrument. He person's eyes flashing, and why is his hair floating? The image
points out she was an "Abyssinian maid," meaning she hailed has a mythical, godlike quality that seems supernatural, or not
from Africa. Her song is about a place called Mount Abora, of this realm.
which may be a reference to a river in Egypt called Atbara.

"Weave a circle round him thrice, /

"Could I revive within me / Her
And close your eyes with holy
symphony and song, / ... I would
dread / For he on honey-dew hath
build that dome in air, / That sunny
fed, / And drunk the milk of
dome! those caves of ice!"

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Kubla Khan Study Guide Symbols 10

the speaker could recreate and commit to writing precisely

Paradise."
how this song sounded, he would be able to produce
something as fantastical, unlikely, and awe-inspiring as a sunny
— Narrator
dome filled with caves of ice. In producing such a thing, he
would also be regarded as godlike—depicted in the poem as
As with the rest of the poem, these lines can be read both having "flashing eyes" and "floating hair." He would therefore
literally and figuratively, taking on different meanings with each be able to instill a "holy dread" in his audience. Yet there is also
kind of reading. The imagery itself is cryptic. The speaker a recognition that most poets and artists—and therefore
imagines those who witness his recreation of the "dome in air" Coleridge himself—are unable to accurately depict the magic
would weave a circle around him three times. They would be they witness. In this light, the poem can be seen as being about
induced to close their eyes with "holy dread" because the man poetic inspiration itself, and the maid may serve as the muse of
they behold has fed on "honey-dew" and "drunk the milk of the poem. She calls to the speaker to conjure up the best
Paradise." On a literal level, the image is striking. On a poem he can and urges him to create something memorably
figurative level, the speaker may be referring to his hope that potent.
the reader will read his poem "thrice" in order to fully
experience it. In this case, "holy dread" may refer to fear of the
poet's power to access a magical realm, and the lines can be
interpreted as a warning to the reader. m Themes

l Symbols Imagination and Creativity

As a Romantic poet, Coleridge placed a strong emphasis on

The Dome the power of imagination. The poem reveals that the speaker
has been imagining what the palace of Xanadu would look like.
This makes him recall an experience he had, and he wonders if
The speaker seems fascinated by the symbol of Kubla Khan's his imagination could ever do it justice in describing it. Time
"pleasure-dome" and repeats the imagery at different points doesn't function in a linear way in the poem, as the speaker
throughout the poem. The dome can be seen as symbolizing jumps back and forth in time, imagination, and reality. The
the act of creating a poem itself. After seeing the beautiful image of the dome Coleridge presents also seems to be
dome and being awed by it, the speaker yearns and strives to shaped by imagination rather than reality—it's sunny but filled
create something as memorable, lasting, and striking as the with "caves of ice." Coleridge also seems fascinated by how
"dome in air" to make the reader marvel. If the Abyssinian maid imagination influences people to create things and the
serves as the muse of the poem, the "dome in air" is the aim of difficulty therein. Kubla Khan is able to create a fantastical
poetic creativity itself. palace with a mere decree, and the Abyssinian damsel is able
to conjure up the most beautiful song. The speaker, however,
struggles to recreate his vision in words, and he looks to both
Khan and the damsel for answers.
Abyssinian Maid

The Abyssinian maid and her song seem to symbolize that

Dreams and Reality
which is impossible to capture and render in a work of art. All
poets, Coleridge may be saying, yearn to accurately depict
images, sensations, and memories in precise language. If only "Kubla Khan" drifts back and forth from real historical facts to

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Kubla Khan Study Guide Narrative Voice 11

the dreams of the speaker. Coleridge claimed the lines for the
poem came to him in a dream after he fell asleep while reading b Narrative Voice
about Xanadu. The Romanticists placed great emphasis on
dreams as a key to truth, and therefore it's not unusual that "Kubla Khan" is written in both third- and first-person voice,
Coleridge would so deftly maneuver from dreams to reality and the reader might assume the speaker is Coleridge himself,
within his poem without necessarily cluing the reader in to who claimed to have seen the lines of the poem in a dream.
those shifts. According to Coleridge's account, he was Coleridge had fallen asleep while reading about Xanadu. His
interrupted before he could finish writing all the lines he descriptions of it and associations with mythology and other
dreamed, and when he attempted to recreate them later, they places reflect the strange associations that can occur in
had faded from his subconscious. Significantly, the speaker of dreams. In fact, the speaker laments in the third stanza how
the poem also laments his inability to conjure up the precise difficult it is to conjure up a memory or dream in writing.
music played by the Abyssinian maid he saw in a vision, for he Coleridge claimed he fell asleep in an opium-induced haze,
feels that if only he were able to do so, it could spark dreamed the lines of the poem, and upon awakening began to
something profound in his readers. This seems to be a write them down before he was interrupted. When he returned
thematic commentary on the fleeting nature of the truth to finish it, he found he had forgotten most of it. In this light, the
contained in dreams and the impossibility of recalling them final stanza of the poem makes sense. The speaker laments
accurately. In the same way, Coleridge seems to say, it is that he is unable to conjure up the precise images and sounds
impossible to capture something so precise in poetry, which he had hoped to recall and turn into words. The way the
feels like a dream. narrative voice shifts to first person in the third and final stanza
mimics the way narrative perspective can shift within a dream,
and therefore Coleridge leaves it ambiguous as to who the
speaker of the poem actually is.
The Impact of Nature

e Suggested Reading
The impact of nature on the imagination and the creation of art
was important to Coleridge. For the Romantics, poetry was Bate, Walter Jackson. Coleridge. Macmillan, 1968.
often a vehicle to describe the sublime beauty of the natural
world, from its pleasing greenery to its terrifying abysses. Beer, John. Coleridge the Visionary. Chatto and Windus, 1959.
Although "Kubla Khan" covers a lot of historical ground, it also
Burke, Kenneth. "'Kubla Khan': Proto-Surrealist Poem." Samuel
focuses heavily on nature. Coleridge starts out by describing
Taylor Coleridge, edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House,
the natural environment surrounding Xanadu. He turns the
1986.
reader's focus to the "deep romantic chasm" from which water
flows, and he even links the river to the ancestral voices Kubla
Rauber, D.F. "The Fragment as Romantic Form." Modern
Khan hears prophesying war. For Coleridge, nature wasn't all
Language Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 2, 1 June 1969, pp. 212–21,
sunny skies and clouds, and it is not necessarily depicted as a
doi:10.1215/00267929-30-2-212.
benevolent force. Although nature appears tranquil within
Xanadu, under the surface it is seething and violent. Coleridge Yarlott, Geoffrey. Coleridge and the Abyssinian Maid. Methuen,
goes to great lengths to describe the chasm, fountain, and sea 1967.
as dangerous, unpredictable, and awe-inducing in a terrifying
way. He goes so far as to ascribe human emotions to its
impact. The fountain is engaged in "ceaseless turmoil seething"
and "breathing." The effect of this is to show the reader that
nature can have a profound impact on both the real world and
the imaginative world.

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